Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

The 8×32 Leica’s really are magnificent. They are tiny and easy to carry on a day hike. The 8×26 Vortex are perfect for taking to the Opera or for ultralight backpacking. But what if you really want to see what is happening during a sailing regatta. The traditional method is to use a tripod and…

Yes you can get a massive case for your dSLR, but if you are camping and hiking, the Sony RX100 Mark III sure makes a lot of sense. It is tiny, but has a 1″ sensor and amazing 24-70 F/1.8-2.8 lens. But what if you are looking to spend time on the water, but then…

OK, just spent eight days watching some incredible regatta and racing. Here are notes on real world use of equipment: 1. Trusty old Canon 5D2 and 100-400 F/4-F/5.6. This is an old lens now, but if you use if properly, you definitely get good results. Shooting boats a mile or more away is one of…

After two years of trying to make things work, things have come together, but XBMC does connect to MythTV properly. And it can see the MythTV recordings and even works for its recording and tags them. MythTV also works basically well with an ip-based HD Home Run Prime. The main open bugs are: It will…

Well, here are some of the cool facts for this week. It is literally raining amazing cameras as everyone is making the transition to 4K and the low end gets better, so here are the cameras to drool over: Sony RX-100 Mark III. For $800, this has got to be pretty much the perfect camera…

You can’t really be a good developer if you ever have to use the mouse. I can do this for vi (yuck!), but not for sublime, so here goes. BTW, this page is broken because you can’t just copy and paste. As http://hackaddict.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-print-apple-command-key-symbol.html explains, here is a map and the unicode mapping is http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/special-key-symbols.html And…

I just love these glasses. They cost a fortune at $239 list, but with the start of summer, you can get some good memorial day sales. REI. $175 or 20% for the Polarchromic (variable based on sun 13-20% light transmission). On the Bank of America site, you get 3 extra point per dollar, (worth 5-8%)…

Wow, I love eBay there are so many of these cameras around and there are quite a few that are refurbished and even have guarantees. Pacific Rim Camera seems like a good seller. They have 44K ratings (?!!) and specialize in vintage equipment. Plus, they tell you exactly what works and doesn’t work. The SR-T…

ARgh, why does Apple have to make simple things so hard?! If you only want a piece of a song then using Garageband ’11 (aka release 10.0, isn’t that confusing!), here is what you have to do: Change to time mode, so you can see lengths, click on the very center “LCD” display on the…

Grey screen in iTunes when playing…: Apple Support Communities. I truly hate copy protection. Basically if you are controlling your home theater Mac with remote desktop protocol, iTunes will just show a grey screen without an error message because it violates the copy protection scheme. Yuck. Yuck!!!!!

Getting some bikes ready to go and they are ready, but their computers are not. How many different size batteries can there be: LR44. Button battery for an old Cat Eye. They aren’t expensive. Amazon has a pack of 10 for $2.43 CR1620. This is *not* a CR2016. A cr2032 and a CR2016 are 20mm…

OK, I’ve been using GoodSync, but on my latest copy, it seems incredibly unreliable. Seems to hang. Of course I’m trying to copy a terabyte or more of my personal photos, so maybe this is OK. But I’m back to using Rsync. Here are some notes: The most basic usage is from one directory to…

A couple of days ago, Pentax threw down the gauntlet to the other medium format digital camera makers in the form of the 645Z. It uses the same ~50MP 44x33mm CMOS as the Hasselblad H5D-50C and Phase One IQ250, but with one critical difference: unlike the Hasselblad and Phase One, it’s feasibly within the reach…

So for cheap headphones, I bought a bunch of the $10 monoprice, but they all broke after about 3 months, so on to something a little better. Tried to give the kids the $127 VC-1000. They sound great, but also not durable enough, so trying to cut the middle and get a $30 headphone. Wirecutter…

Well I’ve always wanted an amazing pair and the chance is coming up now that I have to watch a race for a few days at a distance. Here are some top choices, but here are some facts: Most of these come in 8x or 10x zoom. The main issue with 10x is that you…

The 2008 Toyota Prius takes a 26″ drivers side, 18″ passenger side and a fairly specialized 16″ rear wiper that is difficult to find in the stores. See sources and related links below for more information. Since there are currently over 22 different wiper arm attachments, do not buy wipers just by length only -…

Trying to get a Gandi DNS Server to connect with a MyKolab Mail server and a Bluehost web host is pretty hard. Here are the problems: 1. MyKolab. Right now, there is a bug where some mailers can send to addresses, but others return an “no addressee” message. Gmail works fine, but bluehost mail won’t…

Wow, got four different kinds and it is a little frustrating as they don’t have *any* installation instructions at all, so here’s a guide: MCM Electronics Clear Pi Case. This allows a camera, an expansion board, so is “double” height, but I can’t find installation instructions anywhere. It appears to be made by Adafruit, but…

Ok, I’ve been using these rewards portals more and they can result in quite a bit of savings, but sometimes, these rewards links just don’t seem to work. The idea is that you just click from one site to another. I don’t know if it is because of the ad blockers (I now turn them…

I’m getting stupider by the minute. I need a way not to lost things. Just spent two days looking for a wallet. Two solutions. Be smart (not!) or use technology both low and high tech. Here’s what I’m trying: For keys The latest entrant to the tracking craze is Kickstarter project Chipolo with a stylish keyring style…

Wow, a nice update. Mainly for the much faster lense. F/5.6 is really too slow for the older RX100 and RX100M2 The Sony RX100M3 camera will not be announced tomorrow as previously reported (this is why I generally do not like to recycle rumors from other websites, unless I know the original source). The RX100M3…

mxlookup is a great site to figure out what is wrong with your mx records.

Setting up MyKolab.com is a little tricky and not much on that site, but here’s a good post that explains how to stay reasonably safe: Browsers. Firefox is free and most importantly open. But you need some add-ons to feel really safe: Adblock Edge. Mainly because AdBlock Pro does allow ads (they get money from…

It is incredible that you could run out of disk space with 24 terabytes of storage, but with all the home movies and photos, it is very possible. I was at 95% capacity and things were getting very flaky, so bit the bullet about got a Synology DS2413+. This is a 12-drive array. They have…

So it looks like if you are using a connector based stand, you have to stick with an official Apple cable… I took a close look at the build quality of everything I tested and discovered a major issue with third party cables, even those that are certified: the connectors are fat. Just how fat…

These are great cables, but just be aware that if you are using stands like the Konnect (pretty good) or Hi-Rise (very good, but expensive), they need the standard Apple cables because the heads on these are too thick Charge and sync your newer Apple iPod®, iPhone®, or iPad® with the Lightning™ connector using this…

I think we’ve all seen the Sixty Minutes piece about how all sunglasses are made from one factory and have a huge markup. Well at least in this case a little shopping really pays off. Here’s an algorithm: 1. Find some great glass from reviews. I got a Smith Backdrop and i can see why…